Three Hours and 1,342 Families at the Central Texas Food Bank
Volunteering during a pandemic
By Ali Montag, Fri., Aug. 28, 2020
At 7:15am on Thursday, August 20, 54 volunteers gathered at the Nelson Field parking lot in Northeast Austin. Some said good morning to friends. Others waved hello to strangers. I fiddled with my mask and reflective vest. "I've been alone for too long," I thought. I couldn't remember how to chit chat.
During orientation, I glanced at the far end of the parking lot. Hundreds of cars already sat idle, waiting. What time had they gotten there?
The cars, and the families within them, were in line to receive groceries from the Central Texas Food Bank's mobile pantry. In just three hours – from 8-11am – 103,475 pounds of food were distributed to 1,342 families.
It's been a record-breaking summer for the Central Texas Food Bank: 6.97 million pounds of food were distributed in July, the highest number in the nonprofit's 38-year history. In 2019, the CTFB set a goal to distribute 51.5 million pounds of food by the end of 2020. It hit that goal by early August.
"A lot of folks are turning to us for the very first time," said Paul Gaither, the marketing and communications director for the CTFB. "That speaks to how unique this situation is."
Of the 105,329 households served in July, just under 15,000 received food from the CTFB for the first time. The Texas unemployment rate fell slightly that month from 8.6% in June to 8% in July.
The CTFB's mobile food pantries, which have historically served between 100 and 300 people, are now a critical part of mass aid distribution.
"We bring more food, we bring more trucks, we bring more staff, and we recruit more volunteers to work at those events," Gaither said.
It's labor intensive. Thursday, each household received approximately 76 pounds of food: a box of frozen chicken strips, two gallons of milk, a box of produce loaded with baby carrots, apples, onions, cantaloupe, and vegetables, and a box of nonperishables like pinto beans and rice. Tito's Vodka donated bottles of hand sanitizer to also include with the groceries.
Volunteers and CTFB staff lifted boxes into the trunks of cars, working quickly to keep the line moving and the milk cold. Once the boxes were packed in the trunk, the car was waved onward. Some volunteers directed traffic, others restocked pallets of food. It ran like clockwork.
Despite the heat, the hard work, the masks, and the gloves, smiles were everywhere. A boombox played hits from the Eighties. A man named Robert said cheerfully, "Good morning!" "Good to see you!" and "You're welcome!" to each car that drove through his line. Robert volunteers three times per week.
Another volunteer offered to let me borrow his hat. "Looks like you're getting a lot of sun," he laughed. (I'd forgotten both a hat and sunscreen.) We rotated jobs, switching spots if anyone got too hot or needed a quick break. I learned about volunteers' families and their careers. Someone came around with a cooler of icy purple Gatorade.
From six feet apart, we all worked together.
"Everybody has been so great to work with," Gaither said. "The community has really come together to make these things happen."
The CTFB has hosted 36 mass distributions at mobile food pantries since April and plans to continue as needed. But keeping pantries stocked hasn't been easy.
"It's a huge logistics challenge," Gaither said. "There have been a lot of disruptions in the supply chain for food. That's caused a lot of our great partners to not have a lot of the food that they normally donate available. We've had to spend an unprecedented amount of money buying food, not just for the mobile pantries but also for our [over 250] partner agencies."
Still, the CTFB remains committed. "We're in it for the long haul," Gaither said.
I'm committed to returning too. After many weeks in an empty apartment, fear and loneliness have become my constant companions. But it turns out there's an antidote for isolation. It's even free. It's a day in the Texas sun, working with your neighbors to serve your neighbors – just six feet apart.
